


Give Him A Reason

by CaptainJacq



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainJacq/pseuds/CaptainJacq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After they get Elizabeth back, Neal's suffering with the consequences of what he thought was the best road. He couldn't make up his mind, but when he did, it was too late. But now he's not sure he made the right decision. Clinton seems to be the only one looking Neal's way and it could make all the difference.</p><p>Could be gen or future Neal/Clinton</p><p>Slight AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Him A Reason

“You know why all this happened, Agent Jones? I couldn't make up my mind. I didn't know whether I wanted more, to go or to stay, so I dragged my heels and look what happened.”

It's been ten days since they got Elizabeth Burke back, twelve days since Matthew Keller took her. Ten days since Neal shot him. Eleven days since Peter has mentioned Neal at all. It had been Peter's first day back at the office the day before and he didn’t even look at Neal the entire time he was there. It was a little bit heartbreaking to watch.

Especially when Neal had made his move just as Clinton was getting ready to go home. He’d come out of the archives and was about to stash the last few files there, ready for the morning when Neal climbed the stairs towards Peter’s office. There was no one else in the office and he knew this had been the moment Neal had been waiting for. Neutral ground with no audience standing by to watch him fall flat. Clinton had felt a little bad for staying, more so as their conversation continued. It lasted no more than five minutes, but while their voices had been muffled, the anger in their expressions hadn’t been. The broken look on Neal's face as he'd left the office in a hurry had been plain as day.

And now they are here, midday, four hours after Neal was supposed to have shown up to work and didn’t. Instead, Neal has spent his morning wondering through Manhattan’s high-end jewelry stores and spent fifteen minutes casing a bank. So far nothing has been reported missing, but it’s been clear on the tracking data what Neal’s been suggesting. But for the last hour he's been stationary. He’s been completely still, right in the middle of Grand Central Station.

Peter hasn’t mentioned going after him. He's said nothing about Neal being missing at all. But Clinton's kept watch. He's been watching since nine am, ever since he’d checked his watch and counted out thirty minutes before he gave in and decided to check the anklet log. But there had been no alert and there had been nothing Clint knew that could have stopped Peter telling him to stay home in their fight. After all, Clinton hadn’t heard a thing and even now he still doesn’t know if that was still the case.

He just knows that Peter hasn’t told anyone to look for Neal and hasn’t seemed fussed that their CI is missing. He hasn’t even looked fussed at what Neal’s been doing considering the tracking data. All Clinton knows is that Neal's here and from the expression on his face as he approached the conman; Neal is still coming down from the night before. He doesn’t look like he'd slept a wink and he’s giving off the mild impression that he'd been drinking. It’s the type of thing you’ll only notice if you knew Neal. He’s still impeccably dressed, debonair and suave but there are cracks in the facade that are painfully obvious to Clinton, the defeated slump in his posture and his slow movements. This is Neal Caffrey much less than his best.

“I wanted to stay.”

He says it softly and Clinton takes the chance to sit down next to him, just brushing his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything. Neal doesn’t look at him.

“Mozzie took the treasure and he was always ready to run, but I didn’t know if I wanted to stay or go. And Elizabeth got hurt.”

He falls quiet, and just keeps staring out in front of him, at the busy hustle and bustle of Grand Central.

Clinton takes the moment of silence to try and find something to say but his brain stays empty.

“It started with you, you know,” Neal says softly. He finally turns his head to look at Clinton then.

“I was so angry at Peter I was ready to run. Mozzie had that plane all fuelled up, all we had to do was get off the anklet and move the crates and we were done. But then they caught you and I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t let them kill you. So that plan went to hell and it just never stopped. I couldn’t make up my mind until I did and now it doesn’t matter, because I stayed and everyone still hates me.”

“They don’t hate you,” Clint says in response. A knee-jerk reaction that sounds like an empty platitude afterwards, even if it is true; no one hates him, they simply don’t know how to act anymore.

“Peter does. And that’s all everyone else needs. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done in the last year and a half, what counts is what Peter says and he says off with his head!” 

“It’s not like that.”

“Its close enough.”

“I'm here aren’t I?”

Neal snorts in derision.

“Because I’ve been casing jewelry stores all morning.”

“Because you've been sitting here, I guess, staring at that wall of departure times for almost an hour and a half.”

“Afraid I’ll run?”

“You certainly are.”

Neal scoffs and turns back to staring at the crowd.

“I've been wandering in and out of stores all day and it would be so damn easy to do it, trick them or steal it all. So easy. It's been like walking on a precipice and I don’t know what’s stopping me from falling in. I don’t know.”

He hangs his head and his hair falls forward, curling over his forehead and hiding his eyes and there is something so vulnerable about the man in front of him it has Clinton’s gut churning uncomfortably. Neal Caffrey is not a vulnerable man, not in the slightest. No matter the situation, Neal Caffrey is always standing tall and proud. Even after his girlfriend had died he'd kept it internal, giving the world a front of collected calm even if it was the furthest thing from the truth. Neal Caffrey is not vulnerable, but Clinton's certainly not so sure about the person underneath the Neal Caffrey veneer, the little boy who grew up desperate to be anybody else but him. And this is Clinton's first glimpse.

“I'm tired, Jones,” Neal says quietly, still hidden by his slouch and the curtain of hair. He sighs and his shoulders droop for a moment, but then he straightens and looks at Jones with wide eyes.

“I'm tired. And I don’t know what to do.”

He looks so desperately lost right then, Clinton knows he has to do something.

“Come with me,” Clinton says, standing up. Neal stares at him with the question plain as day in his eyes but he still stands up and doesn’t say anything as Clinton leads the way back to the car. Neal doesn’t say anything when Clinton opens the door for him. Neal just folds himself inside the ford and sits quietly the whole trip. Jones doesn’t know why he winds up taking Neal back to his apartment and he’s certainly glad Neal doesn’t ask why either because he has absolutely no idea what he'd have said.

Instead he lets Neal inside his house and he boils the kettle and he sets a damn bottle of water in front of the man. Neal doesn’t question any of it. He just takes the bottle gratefully and opens it.

“You look like crap,” Clint says and the path just seems so painfully straightforward, then. Neal had wanted to stay in this ridiculously complex life of his, here in New York with the FBI and in the last couple of weeks no one has given him proof he’d made the right choice. And yet he’s still here. It just seems so easy, after that.

“If you want to crash on the couch there's extra bedding in the cupboard. I gotta head back to the office for a bit, but if you want to stay you can.”

“Why are you doing this?” Neal asks then, the question he’d dreaded in the car. But now he has an answer. Clinton shrugs.

“Guess I figured you needed someone on your side,” he says and the tension in Neal’s shoulders slips just a little and his expression softens. Give him a reason to stay, he thinks and smiles.

He could do that.

Neal looks up at him then, the tiniest spark of hope in his eyes.

“Thanks,” he says.

Give him a reason to stay.

 


End file.
